


see you falling

by redpaint



Category: Formula 1 RPF
Genre: Begging, Goodbye Sex, M/M, Wedding Ring Kink
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-22
Updated: 2020-10-22
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:47:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27145441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redpaint/pseuds/redpaint
Summary: “I can’t— There are no words. No words. I just need to get this out of my head, okay? Before you go.”
Relationships: Charles Leclerc/Sebastian Vettel
Comments: 32
Kudos: 146





	see you falling

**Author's Note:**

  * For [superoxide](https://archiveofourown.org/users/superoxide/gifts).



> for superoxide — you changed the whole entire game and this fic owes so much to you. sorry this is uhhhhh 90% porn.
> 
> [now with the most amazing gifs](https://j-button.tumblr.com/post/634059777084899328/i-cant-there-are-no-words-no-words-i-just) and [a director's commentary version](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1lWDruWvzuwIguVE6S0EWqml21-9faZaq8mUGFqxevlI/edit)

Seb’s flat in Maranello is a fourth-floor walkup in an ugly post-war building, plain and gray — the kind of place a bachelor would rent and then leave as soon as his job afforded him something better. It’s cheap enough that renewing the lease was always barely worth thinking about, because sometimes having a place to pass out in private is a luxury. It’s a decent morning’s walk from the factory and Seb’s had it since he signed with Ferrari, but he won’t be needing it, not after the post-season debrief.

Moving out is a process, even with the modicum of _stuff_ he keeps around. It doesn’t help that both the sink and the heating broke while they were racing in the Middle East, like the building wanted him gone already. He doesn’t blame the plumbing or the old wiring — every man, woman, and child in Maranello seems to feel the same way.

Charles follows him home from the world’s worst going-away party like a stray dog, still wearing his team-mandated schoolboy blazer. It would be touching if it weren’t so presumptuous, if Seb didn’t have so many goddamn boxes to deal with before his flight out and wasn’t already chewing on a headache from all the rounds of toasting. “Maybe you are the lucky one, Seb. I am having this car for another year — I will wave when you lap me in your green Mercedes.”

It’s the same forced, self-effacing small talk Seb has had to listen to for two years. He’s usually game enough to make an effort and respond, but now he just unlocks the door and lets Charles follow him in. Seb lines up his dress shoes in the entryway. Charles just walks into the kitchen and looks around, sizing up the boxes without saying anything about them. “I thought the video they put together was nice. And Mattia’s speech too. We’re going to miss you, Seb.”

 _Is that what they say when they send a horse away for glue? How touching._ “You might be the only one. Drink?”

Charles looks restless, like he wants something but doesn’t know how to ask. Unlike him, really. He’s always been more than earnest when it comes to taking what’s Seb’s. He fiddles with the flap on one of the boxes, frowning slightly. “No, I’m alright. My trainer—”

“Come on, Charles. It’s winter break. I won’t tell.”

“No, no, I shouldn’t.”

He’s quiet after that, and the silence gives Seb enough time to realize how tired he really is. The clock on the oven tells him it’s well past midnight. Charles is giving him no indication of what he’s doing in Seb’s kitchen, or if he plans on leaving any time soon, so Seb grabs himself the last beer out of the fridge. One last lonely drink to send off this chapter in his career. Fitting.

“Do you mind if I go and change?” he asks, in the hopes that Charles will stop idling in his kitchen and recognize his cue to leave.

Charles just looks up with his eyebrows raised and nods his head. “Of course, of course. It is your house, Seb.” He says it like it’s some sort of hallowed place, but maybe that’s just the peculiarity of his accent.

It’s easier to breathe in the bedroom. Charles is pleasant enough most of the time, but trying to understand him is exhausting, and watching him pick through the packed-up boxes of Seb’s slivers of life in Maranello like it’s some kind of anthropological dig hurts more than Seb cares to admit. He gives himself a minute to sit on the end of the bed before he pulls on an old t-shirt and team sweatpants from 2015, the clothes of a younger man. When he catches a glimpse of himself in the mirror, he thinks the single bulb in the bedside lamp makes him look tired.

When he comes back into the kitchen, Charles freezes up like he’s been caught red-handed, even though he’s just standing between the microwave and the empty breadbox. 

“Is everything okay?” Seb asks. He’s glad Charles didn’t want that drink. He’s going to need the rest of his beer if Charles insists on being even more high-strung and awkward than usual. It’s going to require a level of patience he doesn’t exactly feel equipped to supply, not this soon after being shown the exit door on his childhood dream.

“Yes it’s— everything is fine.” Charles still looks unsettled, but at least he’s no longer frozen. He starts pacing in the cramped little space, shuffling towards the nook with the unused washing machine and the spare linen, then back again. Had he taken something at the party? Seb barely ever sees him drink, always so serious about his training, but he’d always suspected Charles would be vulnerable to the kinds of highs that make you feel more in control, rather than less.

“Do you need something? I can call you a taxi if you want.”

Charles jolts. “No! That’s— No.” He walks a few steps closer. Pauses. Leans back against the opposite wall and crosses his arms tightly so his hands are pinned to the sides of his chest.

“Okay,” Seb says, as neutral as possible. He’s been around long enough to know what the start of an uncomfortable conversation looks like. He doesn’t exactly want to provoke it, but it’s too late to do this for much longer.

Charles, luckily, beats him to it. “Have you thought much? About the end of the year?” _Have you thought much about being summarily discarded by the team you loved?_

Seb shrugs. “Yes, of course I have, but I knew I couldn’t change anything. It’s not worth getting bitter about.”

“Because I have thought much about it.”

“Not a lot for you to think about, right? Unless you’re going to miss me that much.”

Charles shakes his head. “Don’t—”

It’s honestly quite cute to watch him try and be sentimental. “What? You’ve got years ahead of you. You shouldn’t let yourself worry, you’ll just end up with wrinkles.”

Charles doesn’t respond, just pushes himself off the wall and steps a little closer. They’re practically chest-to-chest in under a second. It’s strange to be this close, in each other’s faces like they’re squaring up for a fight. Usually Seb wouldn’t think about how Charles is a hair taller than him, a little wider in his chest and shoulders. Seb straightens up to his full height without really thinking about it. He shouldn’t have taken off his shoes at the door.

But Charles isn’t trying to fight him. He’s not even looking at Seb — he’s staring through him, that pale, vacant, thousand-yard stare that Seb never quite got used to, even after sitting across from Charles at countless engineering meetings. Then, with all the deliberate care of an architect tracing out the line for a foundation, Charles lowers himself to his knees.

Seb can’t really believe what he’s seeing. It’s theatrical enough to feel like some kind of joke, but he can’t make himself laugh. His mouth goes dry. “Don’t be silly. What are you doing?”

“Please, let me just—” Charles’s eyes are glued to something invisible on the floor. “I need this.”

Seb scoffs. Charles has never even indicated that he liked Seb before. _Needing_ is entirely out of the question. “What are you talking about?”

“I can’t— There are no words. No words.” He hides his face by resting his forehead on Seb’s hip, a shy, endearing gesture, considering his position. “I just need to get this out of my head, okay? Before you go.”

Charles wants something from him, something metaphysical, and Seb honestly has no idea what it could be. It doesn’t help that Charles has been entirely cagey all night, skittish like a frightened animal. Seb thinks he has a fair measure of his own strengths and weaknesses — there’s nothing, physically or otherwise, that should reduce his erstwhile teammate, model girlfriend and Armani sponsorship and all, to _this._ But the desperation rolls off Charles in waves, and Seb’s at least known him long enough to know he wouldn’t show that kind of vulnerability if he had any other choice.

The way Charles is kneeling has Seb crowded up against the counter next to an overflowing box of mugs. Seb can feel the heat of Charles’s breath through the fabric of his sweats. He crumples one of the spare pieces of old newsprint under his hand, just to have something to hold onto.

“What—” He’s surprised when his own voice catches, his mouth dry. He glances at his beer, abandoned and sweating on the other end of the counter, but he doesn’t dare to move. He tries again. “What do you want?”

Charles barks out a laugh at that, so sudden and loud that Seb jumps. The mugs in the box shift, but still nothing falls. “I don’t know. I don’t know what it is. I want to be friends with you but I can’t. I can’t. And I _need._ ” Charles looks up at him like he’s in pain, like he’s excising a particularly nasty tumor from his belly with every word and Seb’s holding the cauterizing iron. Like Seb could _help_ him. Teammates don’t help each other. Especially not like this.

Honest hunger is bleeding through the cracks in Charles’s careful, aloof veneer. Having this much power over him doesn’t feel good. It’s too easy. The ring on Seb's finger, a lifetime of happy heterosexuality, basic decency — there are plenty of reasons not to do this. But there’s no denying that Charles looks beautiful, and the feeling of being _wanted_ like that, _necessary_ — 

“We don’t have to be friends,” Seb whispers. “If that’s easier.”

Charles nods, too eager. “Okay. There, can I—” He reaches for the waist of Seb’s pants.

They haven’t touched much beyond a few pats on the back after one of the rare good finishes. Seb has the horrifying idea of leaning down and _kissing_ Charles, if only because he feels like he should, like that would somehow make this make more sense. But now that he’s gotten permission, Charles tears at Seb’s clothes with a feverish urgency, his fingertips cold on Seb’s skin.

Seb’s hands are shaking when he puts them on the back of Charles’s head. “Slow down. I’m not— this isn’t a big deal.”

“Yes, okay. Yes. I’ll slow down.” Charles talks more to himself than anything. He still only gets Seb’s pants and underwear halfway down his thighs before he tries to put as much of Seb in his mouth as he can. It’s too dry and Seb’s still barely half-hard and Charles gags immediately, then pulls off, coughing.

“Jesus Christ—” Seb tightens his fingers in Charles’s hair without really meaning to. The product in it makes the strands feel rough and brittle, and there isn’t enough of it to really hold onto.

Charles rocks back and then forwards again on his knees, determined. “I’m sorry, sorry. I will— Let me just—” He spits obscenely, rude and messy like he must do when he’s alone, until Seb’s cock is wet enough to slip back into his mouth, just the first few inches this time. And yeah, that gets him there, so hard it makes him dizzy, that and how Charles alternates between closing his eyes and glancing up at Seb like he needs some kind of confirmation that he’s doing this right.

“Yeah, _verdammt_ that’s good. Like that.” He wishes he didn’t sound so breathless. There’s no reason to coach Charles through it — he’s surely already picking apart his own performance in his head — but Charles still whines and swallows a little and it feels good enough that Seb can push down how much he _wants_ to do it anyway.

Just when it seems like Charles has managed to corral his nervous, jumpy energy into a steady rhythm, he pulls off, gasping a little. His face is pink, the same color as the tired formica floor tiles. The spit on Seb’s skin is cold in the air of the flat, and he’s embarrassed by how tempted he is to pull Charles forward again and reclaim that little bit of stolen warmth.

But Charles is holding his gaze now, biting his lip like it’s the only thing holding back the words in his mouth.

“Do you want to stop?” Seb asks. He already knows the answer, but that doesn’t mean his dick doesn’t twitch when Charles’s eyes go wide in horror.

“No, god no.” Charles scrambles to his feet, unsteady as a colt, _il cavallino_ indeed. He pats down his pockets with fluttering hands. (There are going to be spit stains on the Ferrari jacket in the morning. Charles had better know a discrete dry cleaner far out of town.)

He finds what he’s looking for in the breast pocket of the jacket and presses it into Seb’s hand. “Please.”

The sharp foil edges of the condom packet dig into his palm. It feels like teenage indiscretion. The thought of Charles _preparing_ for this is somehow hotter than anything — slipping the condom into his pocket before he left his hotel room, following Seb home knowing it was pressed up against his ribs, standing in Seb’s kitchen figuring out how to ask for this when there are _no words_. Seb lets himself reach for that beer now, takes a swig to buy himself to think as a second as Charles just stares.

This is an awful idea any way he looks at it. His hands are sweating, and Charles is insinuating himself into Seb’s space again, restless, squirmy, pulling off his jacket so they can be even closer. He tucks his face into the crook of Seb’s neck, kissing whatever spare skin he can find above the worn-out collar of Seb’s shirt. Seb stares up at the ceiling and mouths half a prayer, but his heart’s not in it.

“Turn around,” he finally says, pushing Charles away so he can strip off his ratty clothes.

Charles’s fingers fly over the buttons of his shirt, his belt buckle, the zip of his trousers. He shakes his head. “No, like this.”

“Charles—” Seb warns.

“I need to remember it’s you.”

There’s no good way to respond to that, so he doesn’t. He just tears open the condom packet with his teeth and dips his fingers into the extra lube, then hikes Charles’s thigh up around his waist. It should be uncomfortable — Seb can imagine the edge of the counter is digging into Charles’s lower back — but Charles seems to melt into it, Seb finally _doing_ something to quiet whatever noise is in Charles’s head.

The prep is strange, too quiet, and Seb’s terrified he’s going to go too quick but he’s not sure how long he can wait before he loses his mettle. But Charles keeps staring at him like that, unflinching like the eye of a camera, even when Seb gets him to lie back against the counter, when he wraps Charles’s legs around his hips and pushes in slow. 

“Oh my god. Oh my god, _putain._ ”

“Is it okay? I can—”

Charles tightens his legs around Seb’s waist. “No, don’t be stupid, don’t fucking stop.”

Seb has to laugh at that, Charles finally being direct with him after two years of awkward people-pleasing and let’s-just-get-along shrugs. Who would have guessed? Charles doesn’t laugh, just urges Seb forward with his heels and, well, who is Seb to deny him now? He braces himself against the counter and fucks into Charles a little harder. He’s still smiling, even as Charles inhales sharply, pulls at his own hair, and starts murmuring to himself again.

“I don’t know what it is. Why it’s you. But I needed to— I need to— Like my skin was burning if I didn’t. I’ve never—”

It’s hard to focus when Charles is running his mouth. Seb’s not getting any younger, and his back is already protesting from supporting Charles’s weight, his grip on Charles’s hip slipping a little. “I’ve never done this either, Charles, come on.”

“But you would be fine without. I hated knowing— needing it. Please.”

The thought burns. Seb sticks two fingers into Charles’s mouth. He doesn’t know where it comes from, if it’s something he was always capable of or if it’s something Charles planted in him, but Charles quiets, eyes wide, teeth and tongue working gracelessly as Seb fucks him.

Charles grabs him tight around the wrist, and at least Seb has the presence of mind to feel ashamed. He draws his fingers out of Charles’s mouth, but Charles doesn’t let him pull away entirely. Instead, he touches Seb’s ring finger to his bottom lip. Slowly, almost like he’s unsure about it himself, he slides it into his mouth, purses his lips around the wedding band, sucks gently. The guilt should feel dark and sick and awful but it just makes Seb want to curl his fingers and see Charles gag on it, his unchecked ambition, his shameless hunger. It makes Seb want to fuck him harder, has him scrambling for better purchase on the counter with his free hand so he can really put his weight into it. 

“Is this good enough?” Seb breathes, his heart pounding in his ears. “Everything? I’m doing this for you.”

Charles pulls off Seb’s fingers to nod, still not speaking, just moaning out little broken-off _ah, ah, ah_ sounds. It’s a fine answer — Seb’s not sure he could stomach any more words Charles has for him. He curls his wet fingers around Charles’s cock before Charles can get greedy for more. The pressure of the ring must be uncomfortable, hard and unforgiving, but Seb has the sinking feeling that no matter what he does, how much he gives, Charles is going to end up unsatisfied. At least seems happy with this, back arching up, ribs showing through his chest, eyes squeezed shut as he curses under his breath.

“Look at me, you said you wanted to remember.”

Charles opens his eyes, but not before Seb loses his grip on Charles’s thigh, half-dropping him off the counter. Seb reaches out to catch him without looking, but Charles still flails for support among the boxes. A mug finally falls to the floor and smashes, loud as anything, spraying them with bits of cheap ceramic.

“Shit,” Charles says, but he grabs Seb’s hand and places it back on his own hip, an unsubtle request.

Seb tightens his grip on Charles’s hip and turns him around so he’s nearly doubled over on the counter, spits into his crack for a little extra lube, and guides himself back in, surprising himself again with how good it is, how he could have never even thought about doing this when it _feels this good._ They should really stop before one of them slips or slices a foot open, but the broken mug feels inconsequential in comparison to what they’re already doing, a mess to dwarf the one at their feet.

Charles reaches back and pulls Seb in by the back of his neck. With this chest to Charles’s back, any hopes he had of this being less intense, less personal are out the window and halfway down the street. He can smell Charles’s shampoo. Charles’s fingers dig into the skin of Seb’s neck, like it’s some kind of insurance against losing him now, even when it means Seb can only manage rocking, shallow thrusts, can’t even kiss the skin behind Charles’s ear when he discovers that he wants to. Charles is jerking himself off in sharp, frantic moments, so quick his whole body jerks with him.

Seb is so focused on Charles’s body — in front of him, under him, around him — that he almost doesn’t catch him whispering between moans, “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

Seb shuts his eyes, rests his forehead on the trembling skin of Charles’s back. “Don’t say that.”

“I mean it, thank you. _Fuck._ ” Charles gets tighter, impossibly, when he comes. Seb can’t even be mad when his mind goes blank and he digs his fingers into the meat of Charles’s thigh and holds Charles’s slack, blissed-out body as close as he can as he spills into the condom.

They’re quiet again as they clean up, no post-orgasm cuddle, no pillow talk — not when the pillow is the stack of outdated Italian newspapers on the counter and when someone needs to wipe up Charles’s come before it dries. (Charles conveniently ducks away to the bathroom while Seb’s pulling on his sweatpants again, leaving him alone with the mess. The sports section makes a suitable replacement for a paper towel.)

He wishes Charles could have said anything else. _I hate you_ would have been preferable to _thank you,_ sour dissatisfaction easier to stomach than the knowledge that this can’t just be discarded as a mistake. That it might have been good for them. Seb picks up the biggest chunks of broken mug off the floor and tosses them into the trash.

 _Shit,_ Charles is coming back from the bathroom, with his pants only half-zipped and his shirt unbuttoned. If only he’d say something else, get the sound of _thank you_ out of Seb’s head. But he looks comfortable in silence, comfortable for the first time Seb can remember, poking through the pile of old mail on the dinette table.

Seb clears his throat. “Are you going to stay?” He hates how he says it, how he even gives Charles the choice. What are they going to do, curl up in bed and have a cry about Ferrari together? It’s better if Charles leaves, before Seb gets any more ideas about missed opportunities. About being missed.

“No, I should go,” Charles says, doing up his shirt and grabbing his jacket off the floor. He pauses. “I mean what I said, really. I needed—”

“I’ll call you that taxi.”

“Okay. Thank you.”

**Author's Note:**

> title from bizarre love triangle by new order. thank you to partywitharichzombie for looking this over before i posted it <3
> 
> redpaint on tumblr
> 
> kudos and comments are transcribed into an illuminated manuscript in the village monastery


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